Groningen Centre for Health Law

As of 2012, over 500,000 girls and women in the U.S. were estimated to be at risk of FGM or the consequences of FGM.[1] However, on November 20, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan held that the U.S. government does not have authority to prohibit FGM of children. According to the court in U.S. v. Nagarwala,[2] the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) does not provide a legal basis to support the U.S. government’s attempt to prohibit FGM of children within the United States.

This blog briefly summarises the results of the PhD research that has been conducted on Surinamese health law. The aim of this study is to provide insight into the role of the government through legislation. In doing so, it examines whether the government has adequate administrative law and criminal law instruments in place to protect the health of citizens and to guarantee the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of healthcare.

A key concern in global health is the use of international health instruments and the complex interaction between international law and health considerations. The Research Handbook on Global Health Law, which we published in November 2018, brings together the work of 18 leading experts in this field. Whereas some of the experts focus on a specific component of global health law, such as infectious disease control and the human rights dimensions of HIV/AIDS, others analyse the protection of health under related branches of international law such as international trade law and international environmental law. Altogether, we have attempted to provide a comprehensive overview of the most important dimensions of global health law. We hope our approach will respond to the reference and research needs of both scholars and practitioners alike.

In June 2018, the WTO – Tobacco Plain Packaging panel reports were published. The four reports contain the findings of the WTO panels in the disputes launched in 2012­–2013 by Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Indonesia, against the introduction of plain tobacco packaging in Australia. This blog post provides some overall reflections on the outcomes of this case. The starting point for these reflections is a side event organised by the Global Health Law Committee of the International Law Association (ILA) on Tuesday 21 August 2018, during the ILA’s biannual conference in Sydney.

Recently, three institutions in Rotterdam jointly wrote a letter to the city’s mayor to ask the municipality to adopt a smoking ban for the streets that connect their premises via municipal regulation. The parties – the city’s main university hospital, university of applied sciences, and one of the city’s secondary schools – are all located next to or near to each other. In order to protect their students, staff, patients, and visitors, they want to create a smoke-free zone in and immediately around their premises. While the institutions can adopt smoke-free policies on their own premises, they prefer a fully smoke-free zone because they do not want to send smokers who violate their internal smoking policies to neighbouring institutions who likewise try to enforce their own smoking ban.

Traditional health care, including herbal and faith-based healing, is practised in many countries across the world. In Ghana, it has played a key role in providing health care over the past centuries and is still widely used as an alternative to allopathic medicine. It is speculated that around 80% of Ghanaians first turn to traditional health providers before making use of allopathic clinics.[1]

Op 15 juni 2018 stuurde Minister Bruins een notitie over dwanglicenties aan de Tweede Kamer. In deze briefing maken wij een aantal voorlopige opmerkingen op de notitie van de Minister.

In celebration of her upcoming PhD defence on 28 May, Voices in the Field interviewed Eva Zhang about her experience as a researcher specialising in the right to health in China.

The sugar tax does not receive the attention it deserves in the Netherlands. Research indicates that a price increase of fizzy drinks in particular can reduce its consumption. It is time for a more concerted governmental, societal, and scientific debate in the Netherlands about the pros and cons of this measure.